- Last minute venue move to a good pub with great beer and mediocre puddings (it even had pews!)
- Left the Culture Jamming to another time and went with the flow
- Agreed how we all love/want 'searing honesty' - how it brings the best/reality out of us
- Agreed that we want to be doing not just talking and batted round a few ideas
I really enjoyed it
So... we missed the culture jamming though we may come back to that if people are interested
In the meantime I am going to do a 12 week series of posts inspired by the idea of culture jamming and the way Revelation uses/subverts/invests common cultural stuff with new and prophetic challenge & redemptive hope. To do this I will be using some great images from the infamous graffiti artist/genius Banksy. Basically I'll post an image and simply invite you to bounce your ideas of it - to comment on what it says to you, to see if it makes you think of anything from the Biblical narrative or about Jesus or just about life in general.
I'll try and do images in situ as I think Banksy is best seen in the context of where he paints. Here's the first on to follow on from the previous Guantanamo stuff -
Posts
2 comments:
this pic makes me think of:
a caged animal
faceless = dehumanised (?demonised)
also feels like the faceless face is looking at passersby (and me too, observing the image) with a challenge, or perhaps more 'a bearing witness' to this particular example of mans' inhumanity to man
ok so what's pictured is an extreme example but where do I fail to recognise or respond to another's humanity, what systems or pressures dehumanise me or others and is there anything I can do differently in these situations?
on a different note, it also reminded me of the Manchester Passion on telly a couple of Easter's ago(which I thought was fab) - Jesus before Pilate dressed in the iconic orange jumpsuit - was a powerful image
Rache's comment about Jesus dressed in the iconic jumpsuit is intriguing. It reminds me of a picture I have of Jesus dressed as a concentration camp inmate, being mocked by Nazi soldiers. The scene recreates the mocking of Jesus at his arrest - blindfolded, beaten with sticks and a crown of thorns/barbed wire on his head.
I'd love to see an updated version of this with Jesus dressed as a guantanamo inmate. I think this would be pretty powerful with the American Right at the moment!
Jesus, concentration camp inmates, guantanamo bay inmates - all victims of unfair trials, punished without evidence. Jesus stands with all of them.
Also, check out this Banksy prank - placing a blow up guantanamo doll at Disneyland next to one of the rides:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRNmhmfSpVg
I also think that the image of the man walking past can't help us think about the suffering we 'walk past' and do nothing about. I want to somehow keep the balance between not making excuses for not doing anything and not relinquishing responsibility.
Post a Comment